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Thanks to great weather and my laptop, I have been spending more time outside than I can recall in a long while. I’m happiest when I can feel lazy while being productive. And my sunglasses are getting a workout. Last night I saw a man get dramatically thrown out of car by his wife (I assume) and now I’m just sitting here waiting for further drama to unfold. It’s exciting.

You know what else is exciting about chilling outside all day? You come up with weird things to do with plants.

Fern. Ferns. Ferns. I have ferns on the brain. They are my absolute favorite plant. Did you know ferns are older than dinosaurs? It’s true. Eat your heart out, Jurassic Park.

I have never met a pom pom I didn’t like. Big, small, round, floppy…doesn’t matter. If it vaguely resembles a pom pom or a tassel I will be on it like white on rice. True story: I met a woman at an event a couple weeks ago who was wearing a the raddest pom pom necklace and I instantly liked her. Thing was, after ten minutes of conversation it became clear that she was actually a dirtbag, like a really awful sort of human being, but because of her necklace, I still had to like her. Isn’t that bizarre? That is the power of pom poms. That is also why I went home and made a similar DIY version for myself.

If you saw my tassel necklaces from last summer you might already know how I made this. It could not be easier. Just a little embroidery floss and some beads and BAM. It’s ready to wear!

Materials
Embroidery Floss
Beads + Twine (You can also use a readymade necklace)

Instructions

1. Cut embroidery floss in half.
2. Tie off each bundle directly down the center, secure with a knot, and snip the ends.
3. String beads to the desired length (the necklace here is 25″)
4. Tie pom poms to the strand at random intervals.

The pom pom making can be done in about 15 minutes. The hard part here is stringing the beads, especially if you are like me and chose super small beads. If anyone knows a source for buying readymade wooden bead necklaces in bulk (like Mardi Gras necklaces but wooden), holler. I scoured the internet and could not find anything that did not require stringing or re-stringing. Can you tell how lazy I am by my resistance to string beads? Listen: the struggle is real.

And there you have it, and all-season, all-occasion, Rad As All Get Out, pom pom necklace. Enjoy!

Last December I started painting gift bags and I liked it so much that I was sad when January rolled around and I had nothing left to paint! This is my problem. I have some weird emotional baggage when it comes to comes to painting for the sake of painting, so somehow, sticking to familiar/functional/inexpensive objects allows me to free up my creative mojo, which is exactly what I want right now. The dreariness of winter has a way of squashing my creative spirit, so a simple project like painting old thrift store purses is exactly what I need. Also, cute purses. Look!
There really isn’t any design or method involved here, just a series of slaps and dashes and color. Lots and lots of color.

Thrift stores are fantastic for finding pocketbooks for a dollar or two. Many of them appear to be new or nearly-new, and lot of them are made from leather, silks and satins. I almost feel bad painting them!

The key ingredient here is an all-purpose paint that will stick to fabric or vinyl, and great flat brushes. Mark-making is such an easy way to create simple patterns, but if you don’t have a couple of great brushes, it’s much more difficult to get the paint to lay down just right. Double-tip brushes are especially handy for building up leopard-like patterns in a hurry.

Apparently Lolabelle does not approve of this method and decided to knock everything over.

Thanks, Lola.

Heads up: you might see some more painting projects around here the next few weeks. I’m not sure if it’s a phase or the stirrings of winterish cabin fever, but I’m on a painting binge and I hope you’ll ride it out with me!

No belts, no sizes, no nothing. Errrrbody loves a kaftan. Elizabeth Taylor loved kaftans so much Christey’s auction house held a whole event around her collection. Christina Hendricks (aka Joan from Madmen) was just on the tonight show professing her love of a good “kaftans and casseroles” party. Now that’s my kind of gal!

My closet is well-stocked on the kaftan front, but I’m always on the prowl for more. Thought now would be a good time to bookmark a few of my favorite kaftan bargains to share with you guys here.

So, it turns out, that post I wrote about turning a scarf into a shrug was pretty popular. Turns out that everybody wants to cover their shoulders once in a while, and knit cardigans just ain’t cuttin’ it.

Buh-bye, Cardigans!

These boleros are so easy to make. Just snip-snip an old T-shirt and bam-boom-bam, you are like a Old Navy flamenco dancer. Ole!

Just trim the edges, flip it upside down, and slip it on. The fabric that was around the bodice now drapes around the neck and onto the chest.

The secret is to use T-shirts with really big arm holes. I know everyone likes a fitted T, but save those for other stuff. If the shirt is a size too big, that’s even better. Don’t want to use your own shirt? Go to the thrift store. Don’t forget to check the long-sleeved t-shirts in the men’s section too. Tons of them just waiting to be cut up!

I love me a good tote bag. I think people like great big tote bags in the summer because carrying a large bag makes their butt look teensy by comparison.

Okay, by people I mean me, but whatever.

A big bag is a good bag, but a big bag is a boring bag. Let’s snazz that sucker up!

Okay. Now that the totes and butts talk is over, let’s talk about something important: printable craft decals.

I know this has been concerning you. And I’ll confess here, my previous history with do-it-yourself printed decal goods was not great. The ink was never stable. It would bleed or warp all over the place. It never transferred evenly. One time, years ago, I made t-shirts that said HAPPY BIRTHDAY DOUG and the big portions of the print didn’t transfer so it came out reading APPY IRTHDA DO G.

People went around the party saying “Happy Earthday, Dawg!” in a British accent. It sounds cuter than it was. Doug was not impressed. And printable craft decals and I parted ways, forever…

…BUT THEN! Then I met up with one of my favorite people, Jonathan Fong, at the CHA show last summer and he showed me the light. This is it!

Craft Attitude is different than the other printable decals. It’s probably wrong for me to call it a decal. It’s like a cross between a super thin decal and a fruit roll up. Instead of printing to paper and hoping it transfers, you print to a super-thin, jelly-web-like sticker that you can stick to whatever you want; fabric, wood, plastic, metal…anything.

The sticker-like thingy comes pre-stuck to standard letter size paper, so all you have to do is run it through any desktop ink-jet printer, no big whoop. It sounds easy, and it’s easier than it sounds. Just load it in there like regular copy paper. My friend, you can handle this!

For this project I am adhering the Craft Attitude to fabric using fusible webbing, but Mod Podge or plain white glue would have been fine. When I first saw Jonathan’s demo, he was using a simple kid’s glue stick to adhere it to sneakers. Nifty much?

I have big plans for this stuff down the line, but I wanted to start out with a simple summer tote (see above credit in regards to butts). This bag was one of those things they give-away at the store when you buy too much makeup, which meant it was free. Boring, but free. I see this very same bag in thrift stores allllllll the time. Spanking new! A plain canvas tote bag would also work. You can even adhere Craft Attitude to leather (the procedure is a little different than the one I’m going to show you here). Let’s get started, okay?

Okay!

First I started out by printing images of vintage stamps. You can find those all over the internet or scan your own. I wanted a little Patriotic Americana here so I went with this image of a 6cent American stamp I found over at The Graphics Fairy. I reversed it in my computer (easy) and loaded my printer with the sheet of Craft Attitude. Boom. There it is! I also printed some other stamp images to play around. I’ll show you more in a sec.

After it prints out, you let the ink stabilize by not touching it for two hours. Two. Waiting is hard.

Then after that, just trim away the extra paper and peel of the paper backing. Again, it’s like a sticker. A really thin, slightly transparent, not-unlike-a-fruit-roll-up, sticker.

Now for the fusible webbing.

A note on fusible webbing: If I wanted to be able to pull off the sticker at a later date, all I would do here is iron. No webbing. But because I want it to be permanent, I went ahead and adhered it with fusible webbing. I could have used glue but something tells me glue and irons don’t mix. People who sew always have fusible webbing around the house, but as I am not much of a sewer, so I made do with a few strips of stitch witchery (also called hem tape), which comes in a roll at the grocery store (the laundry section, by the shoe polish). It’s cheap and I don’t have to wait in the cutting line at the fabric store.

After sandwiching the webbing between the sticker and the bag, I covered it with a cotton rag and ran a hot iron over it for 30 seconds, moving in smooth circles along the way. Magic. Sticks to the fabric and melts in a tiny bit. It’s not like those shiny decals that sit on the surface. It looks professionally printed — like this is how the bag came from the manufacturer. NEATO.

I liked the results so much I did the same process in reverse with a different stamp image. This stamp is from Switzerland. Might not be patriotic enough to make it for the 4th of July, but I love the colors next to the gold.

Then, I liked that so much, I had some fun and added some Craft Attitude to an old bracelet. This time no iron. Just a glue stick and I rubbed it on with my fingers and a pencil.

Full Disclosure: This is a sponsored post. The opinions and actions reflected in this post are my own. For real, you guyz. I wouldn’t be telling you about this stuff if it wasn’t awesome. And you can’t find it at every craft store on the planet, so who better to let you in on the secret but me? The nice people at Craft Attitude sent me a boat-load of the stuff as samples, so I didn’t have to pay anything to try it, but if I did, I wouldn’t mind. It’s that good. When my samples run out I’ll be ordering more myself. Thank you, Craft Attitude!

I am also a regular hoarder- hoarder, minus the raccoon skeleton behind the fridge. And I can see my floor. Today, at least. But anyway, back to scarves…I have a lot. Last March I set about hand-washing all the silk ones in a single day and I counted 176. That does not account for the additional handful of cotton, wool, and polyester scarves I keep tucked in drawers around the house. All-in-all, I probably own somewhere around 200. And I buy more all the time. Half of them are from the thrift store, but plenty are new. I love to give scarves as gifts too, and likewise, many of my favorite scarves have been gifts from other people. If you know me in real life and have ever had occasion to buy me a gift, there’s about a 70% chance it was a scarf. Amiright? (And, you know, I love it).

With this in mind, you can imagine how thrilled I was when Scarves.net got in touch and asked me to design an easy DIY using one of their scarves. This is sooooo up my alley. In fact, this isn’t up my alley, this IS my alley. From here on in my alley is renamed CAT LADY DOING WEIRD THINGS WITH SCARVES STREET.

So let it be written.

For this project, I designed a summer shrug, which is somewhere between a beach cover-up and an outtake from Mrs. Ropers wardrobe. It’s rad. It’s easy. It’s chic. I wore it to work and to a fancy event and got oodles of compliments both times. Looks good with big jewelry, and it’s great for more modest, small jewelry moments when you want to cover your shoulders (like Church). Best of all, no more boring cardigans in August. Thank you, Bajeebus!

So I’m at home last Saturday morning minding my own business when what do you know, a Judy Garland movie comes on the color TV: Irving Berlin’s Easter Parade. Honestly, who is going to do laundry and vacuum when Judy Garland is there all fresh faced and stomping her little heart out with Fred Astaire to When That Midnight Choo Choo Leaves For Alabam. Ain’t nobody got time fo that.

Let’s be honest, Judy Garland always takes priority, but Judy Garland in hats is like the ultimate trump card. You can’t turn away.

What’s that? Your college basketball team is two points away from winning the elite 8? You’re going to click over to ESPN to see the end of the game? NOT WHEN JUDY IS ON YOU’RE NOT.

Judy’s headgear in this movie was so awesome, so chic, so frilly, I was inspired to make some last minute Easter bonnets. Seven to be precise. Do I need an Easter bonnet, much less seven Easter bonnets? No.

Dying coffee filters pastel colors is easy as can be. Start out with easy-to-achieve pastels and work your way up to more saturated colors.

1. For every 100 coffee filters, you will need a few drops of liquid food coloring and one cup of water.2. For a basic pastel color, squeeze 4 drops of color into the water and mix (see dye recipes below).3. Keeping them in a stack of 30 (or so, this is very approximate), insert the filters in the bowl and let them soak up the color. You may want to punch on them with your fingers a bit.4. Squeeze out excess liquid.5. Divide into stacks of 5-10 filters and hang them over your shower rail to dry over night. You can speed the process by throwing them in a dryer, or a warm 200F oven for 10 -15 minutes (check frequently). There is no reason to separate the filters into individual pieces, in fact, it will make the next part harder so I would discourage it. Short stacks are best.

Note, same as with Easter eggs, dye formulas can be found on the side of most boxes of liquid food coloring (usually found in the spice section at the market for around $2). Here are some basic formulas to get you started:

1. Working in stacks of 5-10 filters, fold the filters in half and cut 2″ fringes around the perimeter. Leave the center 3″ (or so) uncut. Sharp, heavy-duty scissors are going to be helpful right about now! If yours are dull, try cutting a folded up piece of tinfoil to sharpen them a bit.

2. Form a stack of 5 filters and a lay a leaf shape on top. Staple FOUR TIMES creating a box like shape in the center.

3. Turn the stack over so that the underside of the staples is facing up.

4. Use your fingers to pull the filters up toward the center and pinch them slightly. Some people like to twist a bit, but for simplicity sake, only pinching is needed for the filters to keep their shape. If you have never worked with filters before, you will be surprised how easily they hold their shape.

5. Grab the next layer down, and pinch toward the center.

5. Grab the next layer down, and pinch toward the center. You get the idea…

6. Tada! A coffee filter flower. Repeat as desired. Both hats here feature 9 flowers. I could have gotten away with five, or packed as many as 15. But 9 seems a healthy bunch to me.

1. Turn on your hot glue gun. If you have never worked with hot glue before, relax. Keep some ice water nearby in case you burn yourself. If you are doing this project with kids, you might want to look into a low-temperature glue gun. They run around $15 whereas standard mini glue guns like mine run $3-$5, and glue sticks average around 10 cents a piece.

2. Squirt a quarter sized patch of glue toward the bottom of the cup.

3. Quickly adhere the bottom of a coffee filter to the glue, hold ten seconds, and move on to the next. Assembly will be a lot easier of you work from the bottom, forming a lose spiral along the outer wall of the cup.

4. Wear on a slight forward angle. Because you are jaunty like that.

How cute is that? And easy too. Once you have the filters dyed and ready to go, it’s easy to form an assembly line and make a bunch!

I really want someone to make these for their bridesmaids. Or have your bridesmaids over and let them make them. Maybe at the bridal shower. Maybe everyone makes them as a bridal shower craft activity. Oh Hell, screw the bridal shower and have your pals over for pizza and margaritas AND HAT MAKING. Y’all can watch The Real Housewives of Somethingorother and take pictures of how cute you look wearing these awesome things. I mean really, is that the cutest thing you ever did see?

Now you say, Why yes, yes indeed, that IS the cutest thing I ever did see!

And don’t restrict yourself to the ladies. Gentlemen love a good hat too, as do cats. My Lolabelle loves a good hat. Can’t get enough.

Btw, G-Dub is short for Goodwill, as my friend Deecalls it. Also known as the thrift store, or second-hand shop, or charity shoppe if you are fancy and spell shop with two P’s and an E.

I wish I could pull off fancy spelling.

Well, while I was the G-Dub Shoppe, I got my artistic brain juices (technical term) going by challenging myself tomake One Pretty Thing out of Two Ugly Things using $2.00 or less.

I won’t show you pictures of the two “ugly things” for fear someone will recognize the items and think I have deemed their personal possessions “ugly”….Heavens to Murgatroid, that would be rude, so you will have to settle for the recipe, or shall I say, equation;

One pair of teal satin 1980’s bridesmaid shoes

+ One 1970’s tapestry needle point thing of a a scary clown

=Pretty New Party Shoes!

Just slice up the tapestry into 2cm strips and and glue to the shoe. Regular white glue works on lightweight materials, but heavy stuff does better with tile adhesive. There are oddles of variations on this method …check out some of these super cool decoupaged shoes!

That’s it. Complicated, right? They looked a little sloppy, so I embraced it and added some raw, red, Frankenstein style stitches. Done.

No one will ever consider them elegant or refined, but they are a pretty nifty. Not bad for two bucks!

Years ago, someone gave me a battery operated glue gun and the card attached read:

Now you can glue gun on the bus!

It was intended as a gag gift, although you wouldn’t know it by the expressions on the faces of people riding the bus with me that time I needed to hem my pants in a hurry. I burned my ankle something vicious by I got to the party on time!

Since then, I have avoided portable glue guns and gone on the search for friendlier, less dangerous hobbies. Sadly, knitting and needlepoint have never grown on me, but crochet, however, is a happy struggle. See, despite my enthusiasm for crochet, I’m not very good. In fact, I’m just plain awful. I only know two stitches. I can’t follow a pattern. My stitches are uneven. I only attack crochet projects when I am traveling (like this week) and stick to lumpy yarn (it covers a multitude of sins) which usually leaves me with half-way completed lumpy afghans. Until now….

So, not long ago, my cousin John and I were walking down Franklin street in Natchez, Mississippi, when I found the most amazing lumpy tomato colored yarn at Natchez Needlearts. It’s thick and full and I knew it would hide my stitches, however wonky.

Tangent: Have you been to Natchez? It’s the Miss Havisham of the South. You need to go before she is eaten alive by termites. I’m serious, folks. Time is running out. You don’t know what you are missing. When I was a kid, shops like Natchez Needlearts were bountiful, especially on Franklin Street, but now there are only a few. Every time I go back there are less and less. It’s the mark of a dying economy and a lack of tourism in an astonishingly beautiful, historic place. If you have never been to Natchez, you need to go. Don’t ask, just go. Actually do ask, because then I can tell you where to get the best barbecue brisket and special stuff like lady fingers, and antique spoons, and airplanes made out of coke cans for $5.00. And while you are there, pick up some lumpy tomato colored yarn. If you’re lucky as I am, it will keep you busy on the car ride all the way home 🙂

This was entirely free form, so there is no real pattern, although I did sketch it out in my journal.

In a nutshell, this is just three skinny scarves of varying lengths, whip stitched together with the same lumpy tomato colored yarn. Then I tied pom-poms on all the ends, plus a few more along the way.

Fact 1: You can never have too many pom-poms!Fact 2: If you can crochet, you can make this scarf before Xmas and impress the pants off the recipient.

The end result is a warm, lush pom pom scarf that is sure to keep anyone warm all winter!